Adeco Acciones para el Desarrollo Comunitario A.C.

To generate, contribute and participate in social projects of education, culture and artistic manifestations, science and technology development, equity of gender, participation and citizen self-management, defense and promotion of human rights, sustainable development to improve the popular economy and promotion of fair commerce, improvement of the best use of natural resources promoting the protection, conservation and restoration of biodiversity and environmental equilibrium.

Success begins with training volunteers

By Alfabetiza Team - Project Coordinators

Introducing the first session

On January 24th, inside the Adeco facilities, the first meeting of the adult literacy campaign ¡Alfabetiza!, a project which has penetrated in over 50 rural communities since 1996, took place with 48 enthusiastic volunteers who started tracing the lines of work they shall follow throughout the upcoming months to achieve this year´s goals as a community development project.

Shortly afterwards, on Sunday, January 25th 2015 ,a small group of volunteers visited three localities to the North of the state of Puebla in which we are looking to implement the project this year. The purpose of this visit was to participate in community assemblies, in which the project was discussed with the population and feedback was given by the general public, expressing what they would like to learn, and by local literacy promoters, who shared some of their experiences with the rest of us.

During this process, we have received testimonies of some of the new volunteers, here's one:

“Throughout this initial project stage I have learned valuable things, like the cultural and political importance of the work done between participants and volunteers, “students” and “teachers”. I have also learned that we are going to work with the people, not for them; it will be an experience of mutual exchange and perpetual feedback. We will use a method created by Paulo Freire, since the techniques for adults differ greatly from those used with children. In this method, we work with “generating” words and we divide them into syllables. However, beforehand we construct a culture circle in which we chat and discuss about realistic situations derived from (or “generated by”) this word to get closer together as a group. Also, the way in which we weekly present and discuss news articles we consider relevant to education is interesting, since we are constantly developing our critical thinking.

This project excites me greatly: we must prepare physically, intellectually and spiritually to learn and teach everything we can. We want to share the utility in reading and writing, and all its dimensions. We must learn the method, get to know cultural aspects of the community we will go to while revisiting our own, do everything we can to raise funds, learn and reinforce certain rules of coexistence, have lots of patience, and learn from our errors… a huge challenge that will surely be worth it.”

Aitana, 18 years old.

The first approach to become a volunteer

Training and reflections

Jan 21, 2015

Check out the results we achieved in 2014

By Tlalana - Coordination team

DHS Guadalupe Peralta

We couldn´t be happier with the results we achieved in 2014.

Our team has 8 new members and we have all started this year on our feet and working hard. How did this happen? For the fourth consecutive year we organized our Facilitator Workshop. This year we had 10 participants with different aspirations and expectations, all of which fed the activities with their own ideas, concerns and motivations. This exchange is unique, resulting in a very rich and educational experience for everyone. The result was that our team has 8 new members that have been training on their skills as facilitators. They are now ready to take on new collective projects. We will be working hard these coming months with our new members for community development.

What about our collectives?

Here are some examples of our work on the field.

DHS Guadalupe Peralta has kept their good spirit and their will to transform their community this year and they are now enjoying the results of their hard work. Their greenhouse project is now flourishing with a new water collection system, a water deposit and the painting, planting and selling of ornamental pots and plants.

Around 280 people (10 families, 150 neighbors, 3 local businesses) are being benefitted directly from these activities through the money produced, the abilities they are acquiring, the products they are selling and the organic vegetables they are producing. We calculate their total impact in 600 to 700 people within the community estimating this number from their immediate circle of influence, where they promote the use of organic technologies, showing how to be efficient in the use of water through rain-collection and leading through example the recycling of the materials they use regularly, with the potential to impact another 1000 of the city’s young people if the project has the support needed for next year.

Enchúlame la Bici has now moved to a new shop, the new place is bigger and better suited to fit the needs of the collective which is now expanding their operation to fit more people and have more capabilities for fixing and making bikes. The collective is using this opportunity to improve their managing skills and instate a system for running the shop and the community project. Things are moving and this collective is well in the way of becoming a full operation that empowers young people through self-employment, life skills and a project.

This year was the first of Enchúlame la Bici as a collective project and their numbers reflect how they’ve consolidated their operation. This year they’ve grown to have 30 clients per month. In average, 26 of those bicycles come in for minor repairs and regular check-ups, and 4 of them to be personalized with all kinds of colors, shapes and additions. With the new workshop we expect to duplicate those numbers by the end of the year, expanding our operation further in 2016.

Dkaya Ybaku, after operating as a community project run by volunteers, is starting to look at the project as a way of making a living while promoting an environmentally friendly cycle of consumption of PET. This project is run mainly by young women from Cuicatlán. Garbage in the natural areas in their town, part of a national park, is one of the main issues detected by the community. We are working together to involve the community in this process through talks, guided tours to the recycling plant, workshops and inviting new members to join, this year we have grown the team in 1 person.

To this day we have collected 1 ton of PET from the streets and rivers with the help of the community. The collective is now grinding and cleaning the plastic, which they hadn’t been able to do because they needed special training. Now the group is about to finish grinding the product to start cleaning it. We were able to organize training sessions with help of experts from recycling plants in other parts of México to use the machinery and now they can sell this PET to further the recycling of the material and reduce the environmental impact of the community.

Enchulame la Bici

Dkaya Ybaku

Dec 4, 2014

"Country people" of San Martin

By Alfabetiza team - Project Coordinators

The gate to the village

After living a six-week long summer in San Martín Esperillas we began our yearly evaluation of the project. We deliberated about what we accomplished with the community, the results and the lessons learned, along with the educational processes that took place. After these sessions we concluded that 2014 was our last year of work with this community. This means that we are now perusing through communities in Mexico for the place where ¡Alfabetiza! 2015 will take place. As part of the permanent evolution of our program, we are also beginning to select and train the new team that will coordinate this next episode.

We would like to share the following statement from one of the adults that worked with ¡Alfabetiza! in San Martín:

Country PeopleBy Baldomero F.

There are things a person does out of curiosity or occurrence, or for knowledge but the point is you do them without thought, I am one of them, me and my insanities, my occurrences there are things I did and they made me go many years back in time, those are things I can’t forget and that I never will because they were very special people in my life, even though for many they might have stopped existing, but for me they still exist.

For example all of the teachers that came to this community we will remember forever, they gave us motivation for a lot of things.

The story of my life to give my family a better life because they had what I didn’t have as a child, my steps took me to cross the border y and I accomplished crossing it, my objective was to have the resources to give them a home and I was able to achieve it, for now I live with my family, when I was away I spent my time thinking in them, thinking all the time, cheering myself up and being able to return and be with them, now I see a lot of people that don’t know the city and they come to ask how we could go so far when they don’t know the city, how few I learned and walked, they ask and I like to chat with them, yes, I like sharing, my adventures and my experiences, but in the end, it is a happy ending for my family, for now I feel very good with myself because all of the people who come to talk about a story or information for me and for everyone else they are important and they are welcome, they seem important to me, I am not important nor the best but I feel good and thanks to the group of teachers that came to my community and thanks to my teacher Sofía, I hope that the rest of the teachers were received the same way as us because they are important for my family.

Thank you teacher Sofía and the group of teacher companions for giving us a bit of your time and attention, we will wait for you every year.

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